Clay steered his truck off the dirt path in front of Beau’s cabin, one of what was once a dozen two-room bunkhouses built by their grandfather for the ranch hands. Unlike their family guesthouse, it lacked most modern comforts, sans the solar panels he’d installed a few years back to give Beau enough power to run a few lights. His brother thrived on a primitive lifestyle, but thinking about taking a cold shower with water pumped from a nearby pond made Clay cringe. Which reminded him...

“Did you pick out the tile for the bathrooms yet?” he asked Dani, cradling his phone against his shoulder as he backed his truck up next to Beau’s. It’d only been a few days since he’d left Falcon Ridge, a few days too long, and the memory of their stolen moments in the shower the last morning they were together made every muscle in his body tighten. He couldn’t wait to get her beneath the waterfall showerhead he’d purchased for their master bathroom.

“Ugh, no I haven’t.”

The frustration and exhaustion in Dani’s voice wilted both Clay’s grin and his hard-on. The memory of the stupefied look on her face when he’d told her about the house made him laugh every time he thought about it. But while her dads’ advice to tell her about it had been spot on—thank God he hadn’t put a deposit on the kitchen cabinets he’d picked out—she’d been immediately overwhelmed, the enormous number of decisions only adding to her stress.

“I narrowed it down to the two I texted you. Why don’t you choose?”

“Okay,” he quickly offered.

“I’m sorry,” she sighed into the phone. “I just don’t have the bandwidth to deal with all these decisions right now.”

“Don’t worry,” he assured her. “I’ve got it. You’ll love it. I promise.”

The cabin door opened and Beau stepped out onto the porch. Clay held up a finger to let him know he’d be another minute. He’d rather have a root canal than spend the weekend hiking in the wilderness with his brothers, but Beau had insisted. His added threat of kidnapping had sealed the deal, and he had no doubt Beau would follow through. There was no way he was getting gunny-sacked in the middle of the night and thrown over the back of his horse like he’d done the weekend before he’d left for basic training.

“I gotta go, beautiful. Beau’s waiting on me.”

“Okay.” The smile in her hum eased his worry. “Be careful.”

“I will.” He grabbed his bag. “And remember, I probably won’t have a phone signal until I get back.”

“Love you.”

“Love you, too. And don’t worry about the house stuff. I’ve got it, okay?”

“Thank you,” she said. “Oh! Mom wants to know if your dad got his invitation.”

“He did.” Clay nodded at Beau when he motioned for him to get out. One minute, he mouthed. “But I don’t think Nann’s coming with him.”

“What? Why not?”

Clay sighed. “I don’t know. Pops says she’s leaving town to visit her daughter, but I think they had a fight.”

“Oh no! What happened? Should I call her?”

Clay shrugged. “Your guess is as good as mine.” No one could ever accuse his dad of being the chatty type, but he’d been especially tightlipped lately. “Call her if you want, but don’t bring me into it.” The last thing he needed was to get caught meddling in his dad’s personal life. “I really gotta go.”

“Have fun.”

Clay snorted. “Trust me. I’d rather be there with you.”

After another round of I love yous, he reluctantly hung up and opened the door to greet his brother but paused when another figure stepped out of the cabin onto the porch. “Patchy?”

The man’s familiar shit-eating grin split his dark face. “I haven’t been called that since I left this godforsaken ranch,” Patchy said as he ambled down the steps.

Clay slid out of his truck and met Beau’s childhood friend at the base of the steps, jerking him into a backslapping hug. “Holy shit! It is you!”

A flood of memories he hadn’t thought of in forever bombarded him all at once. As kids, Beau and John ‘Patch’ Valenzuela, had been inseparable. From the day Patchy’s dad came to work on the ranch, his brother and Patchy had been joined at the hip. They’d learned to ride and rope together, and how to shoot and hunt. Two years older than Beau, and a direct descendant of an Apache tribal chief that once ruled the land their ranch now sat on, Patchy had been like an idol to Clay. He’d known everything about ranching. At the time, Clay’d thought he knew everything about everything.

Damn. The two of them had gotten Clay grounded or worse, more times than he could count, but he never complained or ratted them out. He’d have done almost anything to be able to hang out with them. And then, one day, Patchy wasn’t there anymore. No goodbyes. No letters or phone calls. He and his dad were just…gone.

“Christ, Patchy, it’s damn good to see you!”

“It’s just Patch, now,” their friend corrected him with a chuckle.

“How the hell have you been? Where have you been?”

Patch let him go, shrugging as he took a step back. “I’m good, man. Been lots of places over the years, but I’ve been in New Mexico the last few working with the state on tribal stuff.”

“Tribal stuff?” Clay looked him over, taking in all the changes that contradicted the memories of the skinny boy he once knew. “Looks like you’ve been wrestling a tattoo gun wielding grizzly bear or something. Shit, man.” He was taller than Beau now, and twice as broad. The tatts that covered his neck and forearms only added to his menacing look.

“Oh, yeah?” Patch laughed as he flexed his bicep, then snapped his arm out like a striking cobra and landed a sharp jab to Clay’s abs. “You don’t look like you’ve missed too many wrestling matches yourself. The Air Force did you good.”

Clay glanced between him and Beau. “How long have you been here?” What else had Beau told him?

“I ran into him at a gun shop in El Paso a few weeks back,” Beau said.

“Yeah,” Patch jostled his arm again. “Heard you were gettin’ hitched. Thought I’d come try to talk you off the ledge.”

“Good luck with that,” Beau scoffed behind them.

Clay slanted his brother a threatening glance, then reached into his truck cab to retrieve his backpack. “Nice try, but it’s not gonna happen. How about you? You married?”

“Nope.” Patch took his bag from him and set it on the porch. “God didn’t give me a cock like this to be stingy with it.”

Clay shook his head. Some things never changed. He was reaching into the bed of his truck for his saddle when Levi drove up and parked on the other side of him, another unexpected guest riding in the passenger seat.

Jackson stepped out of the truck and joined Levi at the tailgate to unload their saddles and packs. The high of seeing Patchy again fizzled out as fast as a can of soda left out in the desert sun. Clay’d expected his brothers to invite him, but there was a not-so-small part of him that had hoped Jackson would decline, especially after he’d showed up drunk with a random buckle bunny while Dani’s dads were visiting. But, as hard as he’d tried, he couldn’t hold a grudge about it after Mason McLendon socked him in the mouth, even if Mason had thought he was punching him. A grin tugged at the corner of Clay’s lips as he remembered the shocked look on Jackson’s swelling face.

“Hey, Jax.” Patch ambled past them to greet his baby brother. “That was one hell of a ride the other night.”

Jackson’s cautious gaze darted to Clay before he bumped fists with Patch. “Thanks.”

“Missed you at the bar afterward.” Patch took Jackson’s saddle from him, flicking it over his shoulder like it was nothing but a windbreaker. “I owe you a drink. You made me a lot of money with that ride.”

Clay’s grin faded. Apparently, Beau hadn’t filled Patch in on too much. The last thing Jackson needed was someone like Patch feeding his addictions, or his ego.

“Oh yeah?” Jackson said, squinting against the morning sun, reaching into his backpack. “Well, we can settle up this weekend.” He held up a bottle of whiskey. “If you’ve got a deck of cards to go with this, I’ll be glad to take some of that money off your hands.”

Patch laughed. “You’re on.”

Clay closed his eyes on a heavy sigh. This is a train wreck waiting to happen. Why had he let Beau talk him into this?

“Don’t ruin this weekend,” Levi said in a hushed whisper, draping his arm over Clay’s shoulders.

Clay shrugged him off. “Then you shouldn’t have brought him.”

“Get the fuck over it.” Levi squared off in front of him. “He’s trying, and this weekend isn’t about him or you. It’s about us, a last chance for us to be brothers before you go off and get married.”

“I’m moving ten miles down the road,” Clay argued.

“He’s our brother,” Levi insisted.

Clay’s jaw popped as he ground his teeth. Levi had been trying to broker a truce between him and Jackson for months now, though he didn’t know why. Jackson would screw it all up sooner or later. He just hoped to hell Levi didn’t get burned the way he had, when Jackson inevitably set the next fire.

“You’re getting married, moving on,” Levi pushed. “Let this go.”

“Fine.” He clenched his teeth together to keep from saying more. Whatever it took to get this weekend over.

Reluctantly, he stepped up onto the porch and gave Jackson a perfunctory nod. “Glad you could come.” The look of surprise in Jackson’s eyes gave him a brief sense of satisfaction, followed by both unwelcomed guilt and trepidation. He hoped to hell he wouldn’t regret this. “Just keep your boot-rotted feet out of my tent,” he joked in a halfhearted attempt to break the tension.

Beau snorted. “Tents? Who said we’re sleeping in tents?”

Clay toed his backpack sitting against the railing. “Y’all can sleep in the dirt with the mountain goats and rattle snakes if you want, but I’m sleeping in my tent.

After a full day of riding the rocky terrain that skirted between the ranch and the Rio Grande, Clay’s ass ached. His whole body screamed in rebellion every time he moved. How the hell did Beau live like this? He picked up the bottle of whiskey Jackson had opened earlier in the night when they’d made camp, taking a long swig before he laid back and stared up at the stars strewn across the black velvet sky.

Propped against a stray boulder on the other side of the crackling campfire, Patch chuckled. “You look like you’ve been ridden harder than a pack mule lost in the desert for a year.”

Clay grimaced, shifting onto his other hip. “It’s been a while,” he grunted.

Beau snickered, tossing his hound, Thor, some leftover scraps from their spit-fired steak dinner. “That new thoroughbred of his has spoiled him,” he said around a wad of chewing tobacco, his latest vice to quit smoking.

“Thoroughbred, huh?” Patch raised a curious brow. “Got any pictures?”

Clay pulled his phone from his backpack and flipped it on, checking the signal before passing it to him. Still nothing.

“Hot damn!” Patch clicked his tongue as he looked at Clay’s favorite picture of Dani on his home screen, grinning as he passed the phone back. “Bet she is a smooth ride.”

Clay ignored the typical locker room comment as he stuffed the phone back into his pack, after checking the signal again. Beau was right. He was acting like a lovesick puppy, but he didn’t care. Dani was like a love song with an addictive melody he couldn’t stop singing. He woke with her on his mind and went to sleep hoping to find her in his dreams. Hell, he even thought about her when he was with her. Not being able to hear her voice before he went to sleep sucked. The first thing he was going to do when he got even a hint of a signal, after he called Dani, was buy that satellite phone he’d been considering.

“Are you sure you want to permanently hitch your stallion to that filly, though?” Patch asked, snatching him from his pining thoughts. “A lifetime can be a long damn time.”

“Never been surer of anything,” he said curtly, shifting back onto his other hip, cursing the pebbles beneath his horse blanket that kept digging into his tailbone.

Patch shook his head in disapproval and pointed a finger at his brothers. “You know this is the beginning of the end for you guys, right?”

A chorus of scoffs circled the campfire.

“No joke,” Patch protested. “Once the first domino falls… It won’t be long before he takes the rest of you down with him.”

“Bullshit,” Beau said. “Ain’t happenin’.”

“Famous last words,” Levi countered.

“Oh yeah? What about you?” Patch tipped his chin at the bottle of whiskey, and Levi passed it to him.

Beau’s chuckle turned into a side-splitting cackle. “If Levi ever got his hands on a real woman, he’d have her tied up in the lab running DNA sequences on her.”

“Fuck you,” Levi spat and kicked a divot of sand onto Beau’s boots.

“Sounds kinky.” Patch chuckled.

“Seriously, bro.” Beau grabbed the whiskey bottle from Patch. “You’re surrounded by young, hot chicks all day every day at the university, and yet I haven’t seen you with someone of the opposite sex since you took that filly to her high school prom. What was her name? Rachel? Robin?”

“Rainy,” Clay supplied.

“Rainy!” Beau snapped his fingers. “I knew it was an R name.”

Levi shook his head. “I don’t fuck around with my students. Besides, I have an apartment in San Antonio for that.”

“Stocked with plenty of rope I hope,” Beau mocked.

Clay shot up from his prone position, the alcohol having eaten away at the edges of his aches and pains. “You have an apartment in the city?” Why hadn’t he heard about this?

Levi shrugged. “I sure as hell ain’t bringin’ a woman home, not with as fucked up as the three of you are.”

Clay rolled his eyes as he collapsed back onto the ground. They weren’t as bad as all that, though he did have a point. Still… “It worked out just fine for me.”

“Whatever,” Beau said. “Just because you found the last unicorn.”

Whiskey spewed over the campfire as Patch coughed up his last swig. “She’s a virgin?” he choked out.

“Was,” Levi clarified, giving Clay a shove.

“Shut the fuck up.” Clay punched Levi’s arm, then glared at Beau. “You had to tell him, didn’t you?”

Beau’s shoulders rose to his ears as he lifted his hands in feigned shock.

“I knew better than to tell you,” Clay groused as he laid back down. “Asshole.”

“What about you?” Patch asked Jackson, passing him the bottle of whiskey. “You’re awfully quiet over there. Think you’ll ever get married?”

Jackson’s eyes cut to Clay, holding his gaze with a silent plea before he looked back into the flames.

“Jax, here, has a son,” Levi said, clamping his hand on Jackson’s shoulder and giving him a shake.

Patch’s eyes widened in surprise. “No shit?”

Jackson’s nervous gaze cut to Clay again. “Paxton is eight,” he finally said, his uneasy grin widening into a prideful smile. “Smart as a whip, too.”

“Damn.” Patch rested his arms over his knees, the bottle of whiskey dangling from his fingers as he stared into the fire. “You were barely that old the last time I saw you.”

“Time flies,” Jackson said with an unusual longing in his voice, his gaze cutting back to Clay.

“Sure as hell does,” Beau concurred with a grunt as he shifted to stretch out his legs. “You missed a lot around here.”

Clay’s stomach tightened as the conversation drifted dangerously close to the past he was supposed to be forgetting on this trip. Desperate, for both him and Jackson, not to see the pitying look in Patch’s eyes when he heard the truth about Jackson and Shannon, he rolled to his feet and snatched the bottle from Patch, holding it up to the fire.

“To Pax and Jax,” he offered as he sat back down, then took a swig before handing the bottle to Jackson, hopefully cutting the lit fuse on that keg of dynamite before it exploded in their faces.

Jackson took the bottle and stared at it a moment before he raised it back in Clay’s direction. “To you and Dani,” he said, his eyes reflecting a rare glint of sincerity. “I’m glad you finally found what you were lookin’ for. You deserve it.”

Maybe he was a bit drunker than he thought, but something passed between them in the quiet seconds that followed his brother’s toast. Jackson finally looked away and took a swig from the bottle, passing it to Levi, the moment gone as quick as it had come, leaving Clay feeling raw and bone-tired.

“So, what about this right-of-passage ceremonial hoodoo shit we’re supposed to be doing?” Levi asked Beau, breaking the tension.

“Yeah.” Clay sat up with a tired sigh, grateful for the subject change. “Whatever it is, we’d better do it quick,” he warned, pressing the heel of his hand against his spinning head. “Before I’m too drunk to walk.”

“You’re already too drunk to walk,” Jackson ribbed. “You always were a lightweight.”

Clay raised a challenging brow, along with his middle finger.

“Seriously, man.” Levi nodded at Patch. “What’s the plan?”

“What are you looking at me for?” Patch asked with a confused smirk.

“Aren’t you going to perform some sort of religious tribal ritual for the groom-to-be?” Levi asked. “I thought that’s why we were here.”

Patch’s head fell back with his roaring laugh. “I’m Catholic, asshole.” He gave Beau’s shoulder a shove. “What kind of bullshit you tellin’ your brothers, man?”

“I didn’t tell’em jack shit.”

“Aww, man.” Jackson whined, digging his heel into the dirt. “Kiss my ass, you old bucket of cheese. You told me he was gonna make Clay walk on a hot bed of coals or some shit. I came all the way out here for nothin’.”

“It wasn’t for nothin’,” Beau argued. “It got y’all out here, didn’t it?” He caught Clay’s gaze and lifted the bottle of whiskey to him with an approving wink. “I’m proud of you, man. You landed a good one.”

Each of his brothers gave him a nod before they took a drink from the bottle, passing it to Clay finally, an inch of amber fire left in the bottom. He took the bottle and held it up, looking at each of his brothers. Despite their differences, and the shit they’d done to each other over the years, they were his brothers, his blood. He wouldn’t be the man he was, or deserve a woman like Dani, if it weren’t for them.

“Y’all may be a pain in the ass,” he said, quoting their Pops’ finale to every scolding speech they’d ever endured.

“But you’re my pain in the ass,” they all finished together before Clay tipped the bottle back and chugged until it was empty.

The campfire had dwindled to a few weak flames licking up from a pile of glowing embers by the time Clay left his brothers to their fresh bottle of whiskey and stumbled into his tent.

“Careful,” Beau snickered. “Drinking and glamping is dangerous.”

Clay spun around and stuck his hand back through the tent flap, his middle finger saying everything that needed to be said. He didn’t care what kind of pussy sleeping in a tent made him. Having a barrier between him and whatever slithered or rooted through their camp in the middle of the night was a necessity, not a luxury.

The second he turned around, the tent tilted and swayed around him. He grasped for something to steady himself, finding nothing on his way down, hitting the hard ground with a thud. His brothers’ drunken snickers filtered through the tent’s thin fabric walls, and Clay grunted. “Assholes.” He twisted until he could reach his boots and pulled them off, the simple task stealing his breath. “It’s all fun and games until someone gets bit by an eight-foot rattler!” he shouted, collapsing back onto his bedroll. A clump of rocks pressed into his spine, but he was too numb to care as he closed his eyes and welcomed the oblivion that would hopefully bring dreams of making love to Dani.

“Hey, Clay.”

Sonofabitch. Clay squeezed his eyes closed at the sound of Jackson’s whisper, which was followed by the tent flap being unzipped.

“Clay,” Jackson whispered again.

Shit. He laid still in the darkness and didn’t reply. Maybe if he ignored him, he’d think he’d passed out and go away. “Ow—fuck!”

“Shit! Sorry!” Jackson hissed, extracting the tip of his boot from between Clay’s ribs. “It’s dark. I can’t see shit.”

“Get. Out.” Clay rolled to his side and drew his knees into his chest, breathing through the pain.

“I’m not crashing your tent.”

“Bet your ass, you’re not. It’s not my fault you didn’t think to bring your own.”

“I need to talk to you for a second.”

Christ. The pain in his side subsided to a dull ache and Clay rolled onto his back, a frustrated growl escaping with his last deep breath. “Fine.” He pushed himself up and forced open his eyes until Jackson’s shadowy frame came into focus. “What is it?”

Jackson circled around in the cramped space and eventually hunkered down in the corner with a grunt. “Damn, this is a small tent.”

Clay collapsed back down onto his bedroll. “You’re right. It’s clearly not big enough for the two of us, so why don’t you get the fuck out.”

Jackson didn’t reply. He didn’t say anything. Clay finally lifted his head to see if he was still there, or worse, had passed out in his fucking tent.

“Did you really mean it?” Jackson finally asked. “That toast to me and Pax?”

Clay closed his eyes and dropped his head back onto his make-shift pillow. Were they really going to have this conversation?

“Did you mean it?”

Clay pressed his numb lips together, the words seemingly impossible after so many years. “Yeah,” he eventually said with a sigh. “I meant it. Against all odds, you have an incredible son, and I’m happy for you. I just hope you realize how amazing he is before it’s too late.”

Jackson’s head bobbed up and down, or at least Clay thought it did. He wasn’t a hundred percent convinced it wasn’t the ground tilting beneath him, until Jackson said, “Yeah, me, too.”

Clay raised his head at the unexpected admission.

Jackson sighed, and in the dim firelight filtering through the tent, Clay could see his features twisted with remorse. “I’ve screwed up with Paxton so many times,” he said. “With Shannon, too, and I don’t know how to fix it. I don’t know if I can be the person they need me to be.”

Clay stared at his brother, wondering how much of this was real and how much was the whiskey talking.

“I mean, I want to be that person, but somewhere things went so sideways. I don’t know how to get back where I started.”

Definitely the whiskey talking. But it was the closest Clay’d ever heard him come to owning up to his mistakes. He pushed himself up, anchoring his arms around his knees so he didn’t fall over. Jackson probably wouldn’t remember a word of this conversation in the morning, but since they were talking and not yelling, Clay thought he’d give him the benefit of the doubt. “Maybe you don’t go back. Maybe you start fresh.”

Jackson didn’t reply, just continued to nod in agreement.

Clay swallowed back the question burning in his chest but it came out anyway. “Did you mean what you said? About me and Dani?”

“Absolutely.” Jackson raised his eyes to meet Clay’s. “A hundred percent, man. Look, I know you’ll never forgive me for what I did with Shannon, but I truly am sorry. I regret what it—what we—did to you, every damn day of my life.”

Clay braced for the gnarling ache in his gut that always came with the memories of the day Shannon had told him she’d slept with Jackson, and that she was pregnant with his child, but it never materialized. Maybe it was the whiskey. Maybe it was something else. Either way, he welcomed the absence.

“Me, too,” he finally admitted with an exhausted sigh, the whiskey zapping his strength. He was tired of talking. Tired of drinking. Tired of being so far away from Dani all the damn time, and sick and damn tired of holding on to a grudge that had gotten him nowhere. “Maybe we can start fresh, too,” he offered, shaking his head the second the words left his mouth. If the unexpected sentiment was any sign of how drunk he was, he probably needed to go to the nearest emergency room now.

Jackson’s head popped up, the desperate look in his eyes confirming he had, in fact, said what he thought he had. “You mean it?” Jackson asked.

Clay considered saying no. There were so many questions that demanded answers, namely why? Why had he betrayed him by sleeping with Shannon? Why had Jackson done everything he could to destroy their relationship and their family? All questions he’d asked before but never got more than a shrug and an ‘I don’t know’. Chasing those answers had been as futile as holding a grudge, though, and only added to his exhaustion from it all. If he was starting over with Dani, he needed to follow his own advice and let it go for good.

“Sure,” he finally conceded with a shrug.

Jackson lunged forward and yanked him into a hug. “You won’t regret it,” he promised, but Clay shoved him away.

“What?” Jackson asked. “What’d I do now?”

Clay scoffed. “Besides making this even more awkward?” The whiskey may have weakened his defenses, but it hadn’t made him stupid. He wasn’t too drunk to recognize Jackson was still playing games. “Stop with the hapless, helpless cowboy act.”

“I’m not—”

“That’s right. You’re not pulling that shit on me,” Clay interjected before Jackson could spout his standard rebuttal. “The idiot act might work on people who don’t know you, but I do.” Clay held up a staying hand when Jackson tried to argue. He’d heard all his excuses before, and knew exactly what he was about to say. “I get you’ve had issues since you wrecked on that bull, and the resulting coma, and I’m sure all the prior concussions haven’t helped, but I also know you like to play stupid to get away with shit.”

Jackson sat back and folded his arms over his chest, his head hanging low as he stared at his lap.

A part of Clay felt like a shit for being so harsh, but a part relished finally saying what had needed saying for far too long. “If you’re serious about starting over, then knock it off. And not only with me. With Shannon and Pax, too.”

Jackson nodded. “Yeah, I got it.”

“Just be yourself.”

“Whatever,” Jackson said with a cynical snort.

Clay collapsed back down onto his bedroll with a groan. He’d either change or he wouldn’t. Nothing he could do about it either way. “Can you get out of my tent now?”

“Yeah, sure.” Jackson moved to get up but stopped. “Shit. I almost forgot.” Clay gritted his teeth as his brother leaned closer. “What do you think about Patch coming back?” he whispered.

Clay’s brows furrowed at the unexpected question. “I think it’s great. Why?”

Jackson looked over his shoulder where Patch and his brothers still sat around the fire. “I don’t know,” he said when he turned back, his tone even lower. “You don’t think it’s weird? Him showing up out of nowhere after all these years—running into Beau in El Paso, of all places, and then all of a sudden trying to get Beau to partner up with him and his guide business?”

Clay raised a brow. It was the first he’d heard of any kind of business deal between them. And it was odd that Beau hadn’t shared that with him. Although, considering all the traveling back and forth to Falcon Ridge he’d been doing, and the time he’d spent with the contractors trying to get his house built before the wedding, he hadn’t exactly been available to chat.

“I’d say it’s a decision for Beau to make.” He turned onto his side, sucking in a pained breath when the lumpy rock beneath his tent cut into his sore ribs. “Stop looking for trouble. Patchy’s a good guy, and Beau can take care of himself,” he said, dismissing Jackson’s concern. “Now get out so I can pass out or throw up.” Whichever came first would be a godsend at this point.